Thai Factory Fire's 200 Victims Were Locked Inside, Guards Say

Published: May 12, 1993

BANGKOK, Thailand, Wednesday, May 13—
The more than 200 Thais who died Monday in the worst known factory fire in history had been locked in to prevent pilferage, security guards said today.

"It's not our fault," one guard said. "The company told us to lock the doors so people would not sneak out or steal."

Many of the bodies, most those of young women, were found piled up before the locked doors or under stairways leading to them that collapsed under the workers' weight as they tried to escape, emergency workers said.

"We had no time," the guard said when asked why the doors had not been opened once the fire started.

An Interior Ministry spokesman told reporters Tuesday night that the death toll had reached 213, while a local television station reported a count of 240.

The worst previous factory fire was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory blaze of March 25, 1911, which killed 146 women garment workers locked in a factory loft in New York City.

Prawate Tortrakul, Governor of the province, said it appeared the fire was caused by a short circuit, although the police said the cause remained under investigation. Owners Defend Safety Policies

Executives of the factory's owners, Kader Industrial (Thailand) Company, defended their safety policies to television interviewers, saying they complied with Government regulations. The company was described as a Thai-Taiwanese joint venture.

The factory complex, four large, connected four-story buildings, had been the scene of fires before and had once been closed down for safety reasons, officials said.

"How could you let this happen," Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, on his second visit to the site, said to a provincial engineer Tuesday night.

Workers said there were no fire alarms and no fire escapes.

More than 400 people were injured, many of them seriously. Doctors said many workers had head and back injuries after leaping from high windows.

Workers at the toy factory said they made between $120 and $160 a month.

More than 100 bodies, some shrouded with newspapers and sheets, remained at the site today awaiting identification by relatives. Arms and legs could be seen protruding from the rubble as searchers used cranes to lift twisted girders and jagged blocks of concrete from the wreckage. Blackened parts of Santa Claus dolls, novelty figures and other export items littered the site.

About 800 workers were in the building where flames first erupted in the cloth-cutting area on the ground floor and quickly spread to two of the other buildings. Those three structures were destroyed, leaving only one building.